Case study: Daniil Antonovich
Goal: make Reels a predictable traffic source and build a personal brand of an AI expert.
“From zero to 32K followers in 8 weeks — I didn't believe it was possible without ads”
Daniil Antonovich, AI expert
- Neural networks
- Instagram + Telegram
- 2 months
How we got 5.4M views, +32,000 Instagram followers from a zero account and 9,000 Telegram subscribers in two months.
Client: Daniil Antonovich — an AI expert. He teaches people to earn from selling AI services and works with Western markets as well.
Niche: teaching people to earn with AI.
Step by step below: where we started, which format grew the reach, and what produced this result in two months.
I'll dwell separately on the mechanism that tied it all together: how an ordinary video turns into a Telegram subscriber, and a subscriber into an application for the course. Views on their own are worth nothing, and you'll see why.
No system, and a dependence on paid traffic.
At the start, Daniil's situation was typical for experts in the AI niche: he was publishing Reels, but the result was out of his control.
It wasn't laziness or a bad camera. Daniil filmed regularly. The problem was that between a video and a result there wasn't a single controllable link — so there was nothing to repeat a lucky hit with.
The core problems we identified:
Reels were getting 200–500 views. There was no strategy and no schedule, so every video's result was a coin toss: guessing which one would take off was impossible.
Daniil had no answer to who his viewer was, so topics were picked at random and often spoke to the wrong people.
Daniil was in Phuket with no suitable videographer around, and the videos came out unappealing.
All three problems come down to one: the expert was the only carrier of the system, and there was no system. As long as decisions are made on set and by inspiration, any result is an accident that can be neither explained nor repeated.
If your Reels are also getting 200–500 views and you don't know what to do about it — let's look at what to change in your videos.
The brief and the guarantee
What Daniil wanted and what we committed to.
Daniil wanted two things: for Reels to stop being an accident and become his main, predictable source of traffic, and for a strong personal brand to hold up on its own, without his constant presence.
So on the first call we proposed a turnkey Reels production format, where content, marketing and production are all on us.
10,000 followers within two months. The bar is high — many agencies simply don't set goals like that. We have proven the opposite more than once.
The guarantee here isn't boldness for its own sake. We give it when we see that the niche isn't burned out yet and the algorithm is ready to hand reach to a new face. Daniil's audience was huge and hungry for clear explanations about AI — in a niche like that, ten thousand followers isn't a feat, it's a matter of hitting the right format.
Reels formats
One format instead of guessing.
We repackaged the profile so that an ordinary person could read it, without the niche's jargon.
We ran a detailed personality breakdown, studied the Western and CIS markets, went through competitors — and picked one format: effective and easy to scale.
An expert Reel with prompts. Dynamic videos that collect views and warm the audience up to Daniil's expertise at the same time. This format holds attention well.
This format works perfectly for holding attention and collecting views.
At the end of the video Daniil asks viewers to write a code word — and in return he sends a useful prompt or AI material in DMs.
This is the key node of the whole funnel. A comment with a code word solves three tasks at once: it gives the algorithm an engagement signal and more distribution; it moves the viewer from the feed into DMs, where they are already a conversation partner rather than a passer-by; and it filters for the people who actually need the topic — not everyone who watched to the end goes after the prompt.
Then the person gets what was promised, sees that there is real value behind the video, and stays. That is exactly how views turn into followers, and followers into applications.
An example of such a video on Instagram — opens in a new tab.
Filming and editing
Editing: ten Reels in three days.
We wrote the scripts, adapted the Reels that had taken off to fit Daniil, and set a filming day.
Fares happened to be in Phuket at the time — and supervised the shoot in person.
The editing had to be fast: ten finished Reels went to Daniil three days after the shoot.
Daniil watched the first videos and said he hadn't expected that quality — usually it's the first thing agencies cut costs on.
Testing
The very first video — 1.9M views.
When we published the first video we weren't counting on much: the result usually comes after 5–10 published Reels.
But the very first one collected 1.9M views and more than 40,000 comments.
Forty thousand comments is not a vanity number. It is forty thousand people who wrote the code word — that is, forty thousand conversations opened by the viewer's own initiative. You cannot buy that volume with ads: money buys you an impression, not a conversation.
We handle strategy, scripts, filming and publishing; you show up for the shoot — that's it.
A system. We put in place a working format that brings steady views and targeted traffic on autopilot.
Reach. 5.4M views from 10 videos.
Loyalty. +32,000 followers in two months of work and more than 9,000 subscribers in the Telegram channel. These people didn't come for one viral video: they subscribed to Daniil's expertise.
Positioning. Daniil became a recognisable AI expert: the audience now picks him over other specialists.
Orders. 780 applications. On top of that, well-known brands and creators started reaching out to Daniil themselves — for ads and for AI services.
If you want Reels to become your main source of traffic and your personal brand to be strong — leave a request.
I'll get in touch if there are open slots right now. Usually there's a queue and you have to wait.
I'd be glad to work with you and deliver a powerful result.
